The Gryphon Case
by Niels van Eekelen
Summary: When Angel overhears his Angel Investigations colleagues trade wild theories on how he came by the mysterious tattoo on his right shoulder, he recalls the true story behind the inkwork. COMPLETE


**ANGEL:   
THE GRYPHON CASE**

By Niels van Eekelen   
TelltaleProd@Hotmail.com   
www.TelltaleProductions.tk 

Third prize winner of the www.CityOfAngel.com 'Inking Angelus' Competition.

  
  


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 "—probably woke up with it after a drunken bender." Angel paused as he heard Cordelia's voice from the lobby. Someone had woken up with something? It could be a new case. Trylili-demons injected the gestation pods of their spawn into the heads of humans, and they were attracted by the smell of alcohol. Nasty critters. If a client _had_ been infected by a Trylili, there was very little they could do.

Angel decided to listen in. He'd better not show himself, though. Wouldn't do to scare the clients any further than they already had been, and Angel was covered with the internal organs of the Shalleka he had just killed.

"Him?" Gunn's voice sounded. "Man ain't touched a drink since _I_'ve known him, not that I've seen." Angel looked through the crack of the door, but was surprised not to see a client anywhere. Instead, the entire Angel Investigations team—Cordy, Gunn, Wesley, Fred, and since just a few days, Lorne and baby Connor—was gathered at the couch in the middle of the hotel lobby. What was going on? If there was something big enough happening to call everyone together, why hadn't they contacted him? Angel would have staked his life on it that this time, he really _did_ have his cell phone turned on. The batteries were fine, too. Cordy had just recharged them for him yesterday.

"Not now, silly. Before! When he was, you know, _evil_. Or maybe it's even older, from before Darla worked her evil mojo on him and turned him into a vampire."

Not a client, Angel realised. They were talking about him. But what—?

"Cordy," Gunn said, "You ain't got a clue. Let me tell you how it happened." The vampire hunter was sitting on the floor, sharpening his axe, across from the couch, where the others were sitting gathered around Lorne and the baby the demon was holding.

"Yeah?" Cordelia challenged. "do you even know what that winged creature is supposed to be?"

Oh. His tattoo. They were wondering about how he got his tattoo. Angel grinned. This could be fun.

"OK. It all started when Angel came upon a nest of vampires, right? Angel had been hunting this particular group of vampires, but there were far more of them than the man had expected. Once he'd stormed into the vamp's crypt, though, he knew that there was no going back. So Angel jumped forward, a massive axe in each hand. The vamps were totally taken by surprise, and Angel mauled into them. Chop! He took one vamp's head off. Whack! Another lost its hands at the wrists." Gunn swung his own axe enthusiastically to illustrate his story. The others leaned back to safety.

"Crunch! And brain goo flew through the air before it turned to dust. Now the vamps were all coming at Angel together, and there was no room to swing his axes. Angel had to fight his way through the vamps with his teeth and claws. He punched one of the sons of bitches in the mouth so hard his fist came out the back of its head. There were too many of the vamps, though, and they gave Angel as good as they got. One vamp cut a gaping wound in Angel's chest, and the blood flew everywhere through the crypt." Angel had to give it to Gunn—the guy was a really graphic storyteller.

"In the end, the vamps were no match for Angel, though. He staked them all, and—bleeding everywhere—he went into the next room of the crypt. There was this _huge_ demon there. It was all puss, and a thousand slimy tentacles, and a hundred mouths sucking the marrow out of the bones of little children—"

"Ew, gross!" Cordelia interrupted. Judging by Fred's face, she was thinking the same thing. Wesley seemed to have been enjoying the tale, though. Gunn gave the Englishman a high-five. "And you haven't even _mentioned_ Angel's tattoo—"

"Hey! I was gonna get to that." Cordelia just looked at him. "Well, I _was_," Gunn said after a moment, and grinned. "Eventually."

"Too bad, Charles," Cordelia said. "You had your shot. Fred? Do you have any theories?"

"Well, I don't really know what happened, of course, I mean, I wasn't there or anything. But I suppose I can theorise…

"I bet the creature from Angel's tattoo was on a lady's banner.

"This lady, she lived in a castle, like a faerie tale. Then one day, she was abducted by a dragon. Or, you know, by a demon which sort of looked like a dragon. Everybody was talking about it, of course, that their beautiful lady had been taken. So when Angel came by, he heard all about it, and he went to rescue the lady. Angel slew the dragon, of course, like a knight in a story, 'because his heart was pure.' And the lady was grateful and maybe she loved Angel a little, and she asked him to stay. But even though the lady was beautiful, Angel knew that he was a vampire and it wouldn't be right. So when Angel left, the lady gave him her lady's favour, like a handkerchief with her banner on it. And Angel knew that he was going to live forever, and he'd probably lose the handkerchief, but he never wanted to forget the lady, so he had the banner tattooed on his shoulder."

For a second, they were all silent. "You do know that that story's not even faintly realistic, do you, Fred?" Cordelia said then.

"Yes, well, I guess that's true, but…Well, you know?" Oddly enough, Cordelia indeed seemed to know.

"You are all wrong, you know," Wesley spoke up suddenly. The former Watcher had kept quiet so far, and the others all looked up at the quiet surety in his voice. Angel looked forward to hearing this one. He couldn't imagine anyone alive actually knowing the real story, but if anyone had written it down, it must have been an over-zealous Watcher. Maybe Wesley knew.

"The creature that is depicted on Angel's tattoo is a gryphon." At the others' blank stares, Wesley elaborated. "It is a demonic creature that actually exists. It isn't very common, and it was found almost exclusively in ancient Egypt and India, but a few centuries ago the species migrated to the European south-west. There are records of Darla and Angelus travelling in that region.

"I was required to read everything the Watchers' Council had on Angel's existence before I was sent to Sunnydale, but even the Council only possesses some rudimentary knowledge on this period of Angel's existence. I believe I can piece some things together, though.

"We know for a fact that the Order of Chrezanthus had a stronghold in an ancient castle in the southern Balkans. The Order of Chrezanthus were enemies of the Order of Aurelius, of which Darla was once a member. We know two more things. One, the Chrezantians wore ritualistic tattoos, which celebrated each vampire's greatest victories. Two, while Darla and Angelus were travelling through the region, they somehow took Darla captive.

"I imagine that Angelus was at a loss at how he could free Darla. He was far too canny to simply attack the Chrezanthians' castle. Angelus was outnumbered and outgunned, and he knew it.

"Perhaps the Chrezanthians came to him, to propose to test him, or perhaps Angelus went to them and proposed a trade. Either way, Angelus made a deal with the Order that if he rid them of the gryphon that had been hunting them for sport, Darla would be released.

"It would have been no trouble for Angelus to track the creature to its aerie. It isn't in a gryphon's nature to hide. Defeating the creature, though, would have been something different altogether. A gryphon will not die, you see, until its hearts have been torn out and burnt. It has three hearts, and its blood burns the skin like sulphuric acid. The battle was a challenge, even to a vampire as powerful as Angelus, and I can't imagine that it lasted shorter that from dusk till dawn, or Angelus surviving it without terrible injuries.

"In the end, though, Angelus must have vanquished the beast and brought its head as evidence to show to the Chrezantians.

"To complete the deal, and for the release of Darla, the Chrezanthians demanded that Angelus accept a tattoo commemorating his victory, as per their traditions. I imagine that Angelus quite fancied the idea. The tattoo was a reminder to Darla that he had had to save her every time they… um… were together."

Angel chuckled. Then again, maybe Wesley didn't know as much as he thought he did.

Bundled up in his uncle Lorne's arms, Connor gurgled, almost as if sharing his old man's amusement. "You're absolutely right, sweetykins," the anagogic demon said warmly, "daddy's friends all have these violent ideas about daddy. We both know that there's only one good reason to have someone stick hot needles in your skin."

"Oh?" Gunn laughed. "And what's that, then, Lorne?" Angel shook himself. His mind had drifted off while watching his son. He hadn't missed anything, though, because Lorne seemed to have the exact same problem. "Lorne?"

"What? Oh! Well, the only proper reason to get a tattoo is to immortalise someone you love, of course, to keep them close to you always. Everyone knows that. Right, Connor baby?"

"Are," Fred said, "are you saying you think that Angel was in love with a gryphon once?"

"Hm?" Lorne sighed. "You people don't have a sensible bone in your bodies, do you? I'll spell it out for you. Fred, you were the only one who was even close.

"Once upon a time, Angel met a beautiful woman—or hey, maybe it was a handsome man; who knows what hidden depths our dark avenger has?—and they fell in love. Considering Angelbuns's history, she was probably a blonde, but there are plenty of other perfectly good colours out there. Have you noticed how well green comes out in this light? Anyway. There's no telling when this happened. While Angel was still struggling with his soul, before taking up the good fight; or maybe it was way back in the day before he was turned into a vampire. It doesn't matter. Great love is always timeless.

"So one day, Angel and his love went and got matching tattoos. You know the kind—their initials, a heart, a big, phallic arrow through it."

"I hate to break it to you, Lorne," Wesley said, "but Angel's tattoo looks nothing like that."

"Well obviously, the relationship didn't last. This mystery lover isn't here, is she? Besides, you know our intrepid vampire—he's simply not built for stable relationships. After the relationship went sour, Angel wanted to get the tattoo removed, but back in the day you couldn't just _remove_ a tattoo. No, you had to put another one over it. And that, my friends, is how Angel got his gryphon tattoo."

"That is _so_ not Angel, man!" Gunn said. "I bet—"

"No! Wait! I've got it!" Cordelia exclaimed.

Angel smiled as he turned away from the lobby door, and continued smiling as he went upstairs to get a much-needed shower. He could tell them, of course. Put an end to the mystery. Only he knew that he wouldn't.

The truth was only the truth, after all. How could it ever live up to his friends' imaginations?

Besides. Cordy had pretty much got it right with her first guess.

FIN

  
  


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Story written by Niels van Eekelen. © Copyright 2004 Telltale Productions. 

In a perfect world, I would own the series 'Angel'. Alas, it is not, and I bow my head to Joss Whedon and Mutant Enemy. Ah, well. It's probably for the best, me not having a contract to put the show on the air and all. 


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